City Trees

January/February 2017

City Trees is a premier publication focused on urban + community forestry. In each issue, you’ll learn how to best manage the trees in your community and more!

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www.urban-forestry.com 19 Typical view from a drone during visual inspection. Courtesy Bryan Archer, Galaxy UAV Systems grammed and guided autonomous missions and accurate mea- surements, communications that transmit accurate telemetry and data to a receiver, and gyroscopes that stabilize the air- craft. In addition, electronics that transmit a UAV's position and locate other aircraft are in final testing now; several countries and companies are testing a UAV air traffic control system to make skies safer. All these factors are expected to continue to make UAVs and associated systems continue to rapidly improve over the next few years. The UAV revolution is proceeding at an unprecedented pace. This advancement comes at a good time for the urban forestry and arbo- riculture professions—the need for rapid pest detection, accurate inventories, and low-cost inspections continues to grow and UAVs can be an excellent tool for savvy municipal foresters and arborists. Why UAVs for Municipal Forestry and Arboriculture? The main benefits that UAVs bring to municipal forestry and arbori- culture are rapid deployment, cost, flexibility, and image resolution. Rapid deployment is a benefit for several aspects of municipal forestry and arboriculture, notably disaster response, assess- ments, inspections, and pest monitoring. As long as a UAV's batteries are charged, it typically can be airborne and collecting data or circling a tree in just a few minutes. Initial response to disasters can be aided by the bird's-eye view from a UAV. For example, in October 2015 a passenger train derailed near Northfield, Vermont, and researchers from the nearby University of Vermont were on scene with a UAV in less than two hours. They took and processed hundreds of images, providing a valuable geo-referenced set of data for first responders in just hours 1 . Some assessments of the mission costs of UAVs vs manned aircraft find that UAV costs are anywhere from 40-70% less than other operations 2 . A recent case study in Australia of tree canopy inspections that compared UAVs vs bucket trucks 3 found UAVs could assess up to 12 trees an hour for about US$30 per tree, as compared to about US$125 per tree using a bucket truck. Currently, however, in the agriculture industry there is a limit to the cost-effectiveness of UAVs due to short battery life—a recent case study 4 found that piloted aircraft had a better return on investment for missions over about 20 hect- ares (50 acres) compared to satellites and UAVs. Flexibility is a key component to UAV remote sensing and assessment. Satellites and manned aircraft can be stymied by clouds, but UAVs can fly under most cloud decks, provided other weather is not limiting. The ability for immediate feedback based on in-flight data from UAV missions also allows the operator to easily choose a new course or change sensors if needed. There is

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